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ROYAL PINES was one of the first golf resorts in Australia when it opened in 1990 and it is still on the leader board in a booming industry.
The estate covers 500 acres and it wants for nothing. Its 22 storey, 330 roomed hotel is exemplary in style and design. It has every imaginable amenity plus supreme service and a roof top restaurant – one of four -- where dinner is a nightly celebration of the culinary arts.
The resort has two golf courses, first rate practice facilities, a unique 27 hole putting course, seven tennis courts, a kids’ club, various swimming pools, a gymnasium, a health spa, a marina with a floating restaurant and a conference centre that can accommodate 2,000 delegates.
You’ll gather everything is on a grand scale and it is all with easy reach of Surfers’ Paradise and its nocturnal attractions, which at night are visible from the top floor restaurant.
Royal Pines was built and is still owned by Panasonic. In an era when Japanese money was pouring into Australia’s fledgling resort industry it was one of the pace setters and has a management style that has brought success that eluded some rivals.
Quality of accommodation aside, the key appears to be the quality of the staff. They are exemplary in their attentions and responses. They also appear happy, one of the keys to a successful operation.
Promotion helps, too, of course. The tennis club is the annual venue for the televised Australian Ladies Hard Court Championship but the golf courses, visible from every window, are the focal point of the resort.
They are known as the East and the West; both are the work of a Japanese architect who deserves greater recognition. The designs are a combination of the subtle and the inventive with an emphasis on sound driving and good course management.
The West, with more undulating, tree-lined fairways and split-level greens, is slightly shorter to a par of 71. This is one to test your short game and your imagination. The East, a par 72, has wide fairways but with water in play on 17 holes. You can open your shoulders here but you’ll need to keep your wits about you.
The East course is the venue each March of the Australian Ladies Masters Tournament, televised live around the world. The girls love it. Laura Davies, who regularly appears in the big event, says the greens, of Bermuda 328, are among the finest she has played.
They are also the largest: some measure up to 800 square yards and are hazards in their own right to those whose approach play may be less than good. They get “a bit sharp” in full fig and you wouldn’t want too many 30 footers.
There are some most appealing packages for prospective guests: one offers three or five nights’ accommodation, with breakfast, golf and a cart: three nights cost $443; five nights cost $638.
There’s also a package that includes beauty treatments and therapies at the new $1 million spa. That’s just great for accumulating brownie points. They think of everything at Royal Pines…
A Peter Thomson course is the centrepiece of the nearby Hope Island resort which, like the course itself, is distinctive, elegant and stylish, with all the traditional hallmarks of another, more gracious era.
This is essentially a residential resort, gated and exclusive, but with holiday accommodation in spacious two and three bed-roomed apartments, all with two bathrooms and kitchens and serviced weekly. They're ideal for families or small groups.
The five times Open Champion spent much of his playing career in Britain and, being a purist, his designs reflect his love of the great links where he was so successful.
The links-style course at Hope Island, regarded as one of the finest in Australia, has pot bunkers, undulating fairways and modestly sized, crowned greens redolent of those designed a century ago by Donald Ross.
It looks a picture and, like all good designs, makes every demand without being penal. Polish your short game before tackling this one. And you'd better have your driver on-song, too. Few resort courses achieve the standards, in design and presentation, that are so evident here.
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